New Mexico Senate Bill 32, which will ban all trapping on public land, passed out of the New Mexico House Committee on Agriculture and Water Resources by a vote of 7-4. The bill may be heard on the House floor as early as today, March 15, with session beginning at 4 p.m.
Take Action! New Mexico members should contact their State Reps and urge them to vote no on SB 32 on the House Floor. Members can contact their legislators using their members can contact their legislators by using the Sportsmen’s Alliance Legislative Action Directory.
New Mexico Senate Bill 32 is a direct attack on wildlife management, science-based conservation and the sportsmen who fund those efforts. Likewise, sportsmen, especially trappers, and the New Mexico Department of Game and Fish have had little opportunity for input, to voice concerns and to have those concerns addressed in the committee process.
Last week, SB 32 was scheduled for a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting with barely an hour’s notice for citizens to register to testify. It passed out of that committee in the same manner as it passed out of the Senate Committee on Conservation, with opponents offered little chance to inform, question and comment on the bill, and with some senators on the committees voicing grave concerns or even abstaining from voting.
The Sportsmen’s Alliance, along with a broad coalition of organizations, has raised a litany of issues with the bill to no avail, not the least of which is a special-interest group has been allowed to dominate the process and offer biased and unsupported information. Sen. Gonzales, the sponsor of SB 32, has deferred all questions to he yielded all questions to Jessica Johnson, a staff member for Animal Protection Voters of New Mexico and the bill’s leading proponent. To date Sen. Gonzales and the Senate Conservation and Senate Judiciary Committees have failed to address even a single issue raised by our coalition.
“So far, the elected officials in New Mexico don’t seem care to what numerous sportsmen in the state have to say about this horrible bill. As a result, the democratic process has relied solely on biased evidence and emotional conjecture,” said Jacob Hupp, associate director of state services for Sportsmen’s Alliance. “The fact that unmerited legislation and unequal representation in the legislative process is transpiring in New Mexico should be a grave concern to every sportsman and woman, every public-land user and every citizen of the state.”
About the Sportsmen’s Alliance: The Sportsmen’s Alliance protects and defends America’s wildlife conservation programs and the pursuits – hunting, fishing and trapping – that generate the money to pay for them. Sportsmen’s Alliance Foundation is responsible for public education, legal defense and research. Its mission is accomplished through several distinct programs coordinated to provide the most complete defense capability possible. Stay connected to Sportsmen’s Alliance: Online, Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.
